Just 8 days left to get your tickets to the Preview Party for the fifth anniversary edition of the Art Unleashed exhibition and sale. Tickets are going fast, so make sure to get yours today. The Preview Party will feature food, drink, music by UArts School of Music students and, of course, art - everything from cutting-edge contemporary jewelry to ceramics, photography to crafts, furniture, painting, sculpture and illustration.

The artwork is coming in at a furious pace and we anticipate having more than 1,000 pieces on display at the event, which runs from April 9 through April 15. Art Unleashed features artwork in all media from talented students, faculty and alumni, showcasing the finest work from established and emerging artists while raising money to support the University's Sam S. McKeel Promising Young Artists Scholarship Fund. Explore the online gallery for a sneak peek.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists will honor UArts President Sean T. Buffington (right) at its 12th Annual Benefit, which will take place April 3 at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia. Buffington will receive the Bebe Benoliel Founders Award for an Outstanding Arts Collaborator during a cocktail reception and awards presentation that will feature live music, an auction and an art sale.

UArts' School of Dance Director Donna Faye Burchfield (right) has been awarded a prestigious honorary fellowship by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in Israel. The award, which will be presented at a ceremony on May 26 at the Academy, is given to distinguished artists whose artistic and educational visions have made a remarkable contribution to the fields of music and dance.

City Abandoned: Charting the Loss of Civic Institutions in Philadelphia, a new book by Photography faculty member Vincent Feldman, has just been released by Paul Dry Books and has already garnered unanimous praise from reviewers and critics. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls City Abandoned a "deeply moving survey of the great civic structures that Philadelphia erected, then neglected," while The Wall Street Journal says, "In understated compositions that transcend merely local appeal, (Feldman) documents schools, theaters, hotels and churches left to deteriorate even as Philadelphia's downtown has boomed."

UArts Trustee Seymour "Sonny" Mandell is helping the University raise its fundraising bar once again by issuing a challenge to our young alumni donors with a little help from alumnus TJ Walsh BFA '07 (Graphic Design) [right]. Thanks to a new challenge made by the Samuel P. Mandell Foundation, all gifts to the Annual Fund from those who graduated from UArts in the last 10 years will be matched one to one, doubling the value of their contribution.